The Crisis Centre’s “YouthInBC.com” is a new channel for reaching youth in crisis. This online chat application gives young British Columbians access to life-saving, online services to help them better cope with stress, bullying, crisis, sexuality and suicidal feelings. In 2000, the Crisis Centre noticed a drop of 70% in incoming calls from youth 13 to 24 years of age. A focus group showed that youth were looking online for support and not finding anything. As a result, the Crisis Centre developed the chat application which is a more modern and comfortable way for distressed youth to discuss their issues.

The SVP team is helping the Crisis Centre to develop the online chat application into a hosted application that can be used by crisis centres throughout North America. The revenue earned from application subscriptions will be used to expand the online chat resources available to BC youth.

Today, YouthInBC.com has two application subscribers from other Crisis Centers. This has enabled the BC portion of the program to expand from 4 to 8 hours of availability per day. The use of the system has also increased. Each month, the system hosts 125 chats with youth in crisis and the site sees 14,00 unique visitors.

http://youthinbc.com